Awards and Lists: Five books to help you become a chef by New Year's!

Gag. Salon's five favorites from the second half of the year. Alex Koppelman says some canned things about cookbooks, picks boring ones, says boring things about them. The end.

Awards and Lists: Culinate

Culinate has the most boring holiday cookbook list I've come across yet, which seems to have very little to do with the writing and more to do with how hot something/someone is. It's also pretty blog heavy, notably excepting Adam Robert's The Amateur Gourmet.

And I am so, so, so over food writers using the word 'unctuous.' I've refrained from writing something about it because it seems petty, but the trend has gotten out of control. The word does not evoke anything resembling tastiness for me. Culinate uses it to refer to ICE CREAM, too, which shows how out of control this is.

Definition, friends, as it applies to food: "2. of the nature of or characteristic of an unguent or ointment; oily; greasy."

Quit. Using. The word. If you don't know what it means.

Lists: Holiday Books: Cooking

I get Jessica's Biscuit's emailed newsletter, and they just sent me one with a link to the most confusing holiday/year end list ever from The New York Times. The little blurb at the top claims it originally ran in 2006, but was published yesterday, and also includes books that weren't out in 2006, like Ruhlman's new book. So take this as you will. Not nearly as ballsy as the London Times list from last week, plus they actually recommend Padma Lakshmi's new cookbook, which, from my brief perusal of it at Book People and also pretty much every review I've read of it, contains recipes that mostly sound disgusting. But hey! She's hot? If you're into robots? I guess?

Awards and Lists: What book to buy for Christmas: The best cookbooks of 2007

Yet another holiday cookbook list, this one from The Time of London, and I have to say significantly more interesting than most of its American counterparts. Also, I need: 1080 Recipes(I do want to cook like a 1970s Spanish housewife, I do I do!) and Knife Skills Illustrated (A Norton published book on knives!). Also, I think it's funny that they write up their favorites and then list the bestsellers at the end. Sorry, Nigella. Next year?

Awards and Lists: Books for Cooks

When it rains....

A not-terribly-inspired list from YumSugar.

Awards and Lists: IDEAS IN FOOD's Holiday Book List

Tis the season, I suppose. IDEAS IN FOOD published a list of eleven books for your holiday enjoyment.

Awards and Lists: New York Times Notable Book List

The New York Times apparently picks 100 books that they consider "notable" every year, and the 2007 version has just come out. Thanks Sam! Here's the books on the list which may be of interest to people who like food and books and stuff (text is NYT):

LITTLE HEATHENS: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression. By Mildred Armstrong Kalish. (Bantam, $22.) Kalish’s soaring love for her childhood memories saturates this memoir, which coaxes the reader into joy, wonder and even envy.

SERVICE INCLUDED: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter. By Phoebe Damrosch. (Morrow, $24.95.) A memoir about waiting tables at the acclaimed Manhattan restaurant Per Se.

TWO LIVES: Gertrude and Alice. By Janet Malcolm. (Yale University, $25.) Sharp criticism meets playful, absorbing biography in this study of Stein and Toklas.